Page 49 of When the Time Is Right
Normally, I wouldn’t care if a guy had ditched me with little to no goodbye. Their loss as far as I was concerned.
That morning, I probably cared too much, and that was what had me hiding in a bush, armed with a spray nozzle. In my defense, it had been half a decade since I’d felt so vulnerable. All these emotions and sensations were brand new to me again.
I didn’t know how to handle it, and I needed time to organize my head. However, I should have expected Hudson to come at this whole situation guns a-blazin’. That was who he was.
“Alexis, open up.” He knocked on my front door. When there was no answer, his second knock was louder and more obnoxious.
Not using the keypad today, eh, Buster?
“I’m not home. Go. Away,” I mumbled to myself from the refuge of my massive gardenia bush on the other side of the house. When I heard him march back across my porch, I silently thanked the Lord Almighty for having my back, because we both knew I didn’t exactly deserve that kind of karma.
I relaxed a little when he got into his truck and drove away, and then I counted to fifty before emerging from the sanctuary of my bush.
I should have been smarter than that.
The second I stepped foot out from my hiding spot, his voice rang through the quiet afternoon air.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I jumped at least six feet in the air—give or take six feet—and spun around, armed and ready.“Don’t shoot!” I shouted, lifting my hands in the air.
She kept the barrel of her pressure washer aimed at my chest as she leaned to the side to peer around me. “Where’s your truck?”
“I moved it to the street so you’d come out from wherever the hell you were hiding.” A slow grin pulled at my lips, and fuck me, her gaze dropped to my mouth.
Memories from the night before assaulted me from all angles. Her lips on mine. Her hands in my hair. The sweet flavor of her moans still lingered on my taste buds.
I hadn’t slept a wink since I’d left her house. When I’d first gotten home after our kiss, I’d spent a full hour sitting in my truck, the engine running, my cock hard as a fucking rock, begging and pleading with my brain to go back.
My brain won out and forced me into a cold shower, where I might or might not have palmed my cock. Twice.
It was Lex.
It was Lex.
It was Lex.
But it sure as fuck hadn’t felt like I’d been kissing my best friend with her tight little body pressed to mine and her breasts pillowed against my chest.
No, that hadn’t felt like anything even resembling friendship.
I’d texted her twice that morning, but in true Lex fashion, she’d ignored me. I swear, that woman was a professional when it came to running from her problems. It had never bothered me before. Though I’d never been one of those problems before. Now, it just pissed me off.
“How do you know I was hiding?” she snapped, a few broken twigs with leaves still stuck in her hair.
I tipped my head to the side and planted my hands on my hips. “You do realize we’ve met, right?”
Her lips thinned. “Unfortunately, I’m aware.” Finally lowering her weapon, she used a hand to shield the sun from her eyes. “What brings you here on this fine Saturday, Hudson?”
I took a step toward her, fully expecting her to retreat, but when she didn’t, I plucked the leaves from her hair. “A couple of things, actually.”
She peered up at me, her bright-green eyes sparkling in the midday sun. “If any of them begin or end with what the hell happened last night, I’m out.”
I sighed. “Come on, Kid. We have to talk about it.”
She shook her head and turned on a toe, making herself busy by gathering the hose on the pressure washer. “No, we really don’t. And I thought I told you to stop calling me Kid. Seems a little creepy after you shoved your tongue in my mouth last night.” She marched to her open garage door, calling over her shoulder, “Which we still aren’t talking about, by the way.”
I rolled my eyes and followed after her. “If I recall correctly, you did a little shoving your tongue in my mouth too.”
After grabbing her broom from a hook on the wall, she hurried back out without so much as making eye contact again. “It was a self-defense move.”
I once again fell into step behind her. “See, I considered that—until I remembered you looping your legs around my hips.”
She started sweeping the already spotless sidewalk in front of her door. “It’s how octopuses in the wild subdue their attackers.”
“Right,” I whispered, quickly losing my patience with this discussion and my roaring desire to seal my mouth over hers and see what else she’d learned from animals in the wild. I caught the broom midswing and tugged it from her hands.
